Time's Curse
by Lady Chekov
Summary: An ancient castle cursed, what will become of the oldest Bailey? Please read and review.
1. Default Chapter

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello, everyone. Lady Chekov here. It's been a long time since I've written a Relic Hunter fiction, but I figured I would try again. This fic may seem a bit simple, just because I realize that I know nothing of Great Britain aaaaaaand precious little about Preston Bailey. But I hope you'll like this one, feel free to review. Or e-mail, if you'd like. Thanks. Oh, yeah, and I do not own Relic Hunter or any of the characters except the ones that I made up!  
  
1358, Great Britain:  
  
A paige ran through the courtyard, his breath escaping in clouds of white wheeze. He nearly trampled a lord as he darted along the stone pathway, and was roughly grabbed by the man and pulled to an unsavory halt.  
  
"How now, boy?!"  
  
He said, shaking the child back and forth so that the tattered rags of his clothing trembled about his thin shoulders.  
  
"Dead, m'lord,"  
  
the paige sobbed in return.  
  
"The king and his woman, the knights of the court, all lay ill and gone. Away, away, please! The sickness is present yet in the air!"  
  
The lord released the child and stared up at the cold stone parapets above him, seeing at once the lonely air the place now took on, bare of guards, bare of anyone.  
  
"God," the lord whispered, a prayer, a blaspheme at the same instant.  
  
"I am the last," the child whimpered,  
  
then coughed.  
  
And fate took her vile course.  
  
* * * * * 2003, Great Britain:  
  
The camera panned left, taking in the whole of the castle ruins, the charred gray stone being dutifully gobbled by centuries of green. It lay in cracked and crumbled heaps, cilinders and cone-shapes appearing as mere whispers of a past well hidden. What may have been a tower lay as bedridden as an old man, what may have been a courtyard lay in the disorganized shambles of nature's amusement. It filled one with the sense of sad discontinue, that man made things all perish in the end, dissolving like sand statues in the ocean of time.  
  
The camera then closed in on a fantastic set of teeth, shining brightly out of a rather egotistical smile.  
  
"Of course, I am the one who stumbled across the find in my research," Preston Bailey admitted easily. The reporter who was currently trapped taking this interview smiled unenthusiatically,  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Medieval scrolls spoke of a kingdom that dissapeared in the forteenth century; no one went in and no one came out. It was called, by the ignorant, of course, "cursed." But as you can see, the castle yet exists. And the museum will soon have a site dedicated to the Middle Ages erected on this very spot, after some more excavation, and a little remodeling-"  
  
"What is it you have there, Mister Bailey?,"  
  
the reporter interupted, gesturing to the peice of ancient pottery that the Englishman held, carefully in the crook of his arm like an infant.  
  
"Ah, this,"  
  
Preston hefted the fragile piece up to a higher level, and pointed out some symbols, barely visible beyond a crusting of dirt and age.  
  
"We have reason to believe that is an ancient urn, a container for ashes. This is certainly a rare and interesting find for Medieval researchers for it is widely known that cremation was not a practice thought highly of by people of that time. In fact-"  
  
Before Preston could continue, the vase slipped in his sweaty grasp and fell to the ground, breaking when it hit into four or five peices of earthware. A priceless heirloom, shattered.  
  
"Oh, nooo,"  
  
the older Bailey moaned and dropped to the forest floor after, "This is terrible, a tradegy...I certainly never meant to-OW!"  
  
The sharp corner of a single triangle shard bit into the palm of his hand and he yelped, bringing the wound to his mouth as he glared at the reporter.  
  
"Shut that bloody thing off, would you!?"  
  
"This is Alfred Blight, on site of the recent ancient discovery," the correspondent smiled charmingly into the camera, "Back to you, Jim."  
  
The little red light blinked off and the reporter started back to the big, white TV van, leaving Preston Bailey, renowned museum curator, sucking his cut hand and staring in melancholy remorse at the broken urn. An atrocity upon history, a clumsy fool was nearly as bad as a vandal. He gently lifted the pieces, more careful this time, cold and rough to his touch. Carrying them back to the rest of the excavation, he had no idea that the slice of blood, no deeper than a paper cut, had become a gateway to a pathogen so ancient and strange that it tore past his lymphocytes with little difficulty. The germ dashed through his viens like a hungry tiger, a dying disease that had long waited for fresh flesh to infect and gorge upon.  
  
Preston coughed into a curled fist.  
  
Fate stepped in.  
  
* * * * * *  
  
The phone rang twice in Sydney Fox's bedroom, interupting the silence of a cool night with an effectively screechy ring. Her hand dove for the reciever, even before the rest of her truly awoke. She hefted the phone to her ear, barely pulling her face out of the pillows. "Hello?" She murmered.  
  
There was a snarl of static in reply, then a soft, famliar voice admist the hiss and scratch of distance.  
  
"Syd? Did I wake you?"  
  
"Nigel? It's three AM. Your transmission is awful, where are you?" Sydney sighed and pushed herself upright in bed.  
  
"Britain, I.........Britain." Static roared in Sydney's ear like a cat spitting. She laughed with little humor.  
  
"Sounds more like you're on Mars. Why are y-?"  
  
"Listen, Syd...There is some....trouble over here. I don't think that I will be in for a week, maybe more."  
  
Sydney's brow furrowed as she listened to her assistant's request. This was finals week and she needed his help for the bulk of the grading. But more than that, a strange undertone was creeping into Nigel's already uptight tone. Crawling just beneath the precise school marmish words.  
  
"What sort of trouble, Nigel?" Curious now, she slid out of bed and threw on the soft silk kimono she kept on the foot of the matress. Trouble was something she prepared for.  
  
She heard what she thought was a ragged breath admist the loud noise, then Nigel again, his accent stronger than usual.  
  
"Preston has fallen ill, Syd, it started on the site he was excavating for the museum. Some castle ruins or something like. I recieved a call early yesterday evening, and I came to England as fast as I could. They tell me...he may be dying, Syd. They aren't quite what he has, or how to stop it. "  
  
A determined gleam coming to her almond eyes, Sydney demanded, "Where are you, Nigel?"  
  
The Englishman cleared his throat, sure of Sydney's intentions. "Syd, you don't have t-"  
  
"WHERE are you, Nigel?"  
  
Sighing, perhaps with a deeper relief that Sydney could imagine, Nigel gave in and told her the name of the city and hospital he was currently calling from. And the famous Sydney Fox, momentarily forgetting the piles of final exams that waited at Trinity, promised she would be there as soon as the next flight would allow. 


	2. Second Chapter

_This isn't happening._

Nigel stood behind a plate of glass, staring in at a person who barely resembled his cocky, self satisfied sibling. Trapped, isolated, and protected by the wall of sanitary glass, Preston Bailey had been moved to a quarentine room, and there he was. Limp and white as cold pasta, except for two red patches of high fever in his cheeks.

Nigel tentatively touhed his fingertips to the glass, and gaining courage, rapped very softly. His brother trembled in the bed beyond, his eye lids fluttered, then opened. He gazed around dumbly a moment, unsure of his surroundings. His head turned slowly and his gaze alit on his younger brother.

Preston beamed.

He called out hoarsely, but the glass swallowed the sound, so the attempt to talk was fultile. Futile. Wasn't that one of the words the Doctor had used?

Nigel swallowed hard.

_This isn't happening._

Nigel smiled back hard, showing his teeth even. He smiled so strongly that his cheeks began to twitch with the effort. He turned his back on the glass when he felt his face would crack and splinter.

_This isn't-_

"Nigel?"

Soft and unobtrusive, that low voice still startled him.

"Sid!"

He quickly clamped the heels of his hands over his swimming eyes, pressing away the emotion as swiftly as it had conquered him.

"Sid, how good to see you! The plane ride wasn't dreadfully long, was it?"

She gave a look, both sympathetic and bemused.

"It was fine. How is he?"

Nigel'a hands fluttered over his misbuttoned shirt, smoothing and fussing. His eyes fell floorward, and muttered,

"Not...not well."

He sighed, planted his feet, and forced himself to glance at his colleague's face.

"Not well, at all in fact."

Sidney moved around Nigel to place herself infront of window that peered into Preston's room. The man had taken unconcious once more, one hand thrown over his brow, his breathing obviously broken even from this distance.

"Have they figured anything out, yet?"

Nigel cleared his throat, thankful for the teaching tone that took over in his voice.

"The doctors told me that Preston has a virus, which seems very similar to some existing diseases, but doesn't match anything they commonly know...he...they..."

His tone hitched and Sidney turned, in time to catch the forlorn look Nigel was casting at his brother.

"He's not responding to any treatment they've given him."

Sidney posed the question that was apparent within the Englishman's sad brown eyes.

"How long does he have?"

He gulped around the ache in his throat,

"At the rate this virus is affecting his lungs, the doctors said...two days....maybe three at the most..."

"We'll figure this out, Nige,"

Sidney said in that no nonsense voice she used on students and superintendents. She reached over and gripped his shoulder so tightly it hurt.

Dimly, he realized that hot tears were coursing down his face, coming in steady streams, unsuppressed.

He hung his head and cried.

_Preston heard a muffled tapping, the sound of dog paws on tiles, it pushed and punctured his aching head until he opened his eyes._

_It felt like the room was filled with smoke, stinging his vunerable sight, clogging hs vision. A cough built in his chest but he ignored it._

_Being awake was better, he decided, better than those silly dreams he had in sleep. Those dreams of flames and towers and the coughing spitting language of the nearly dead..._

_He shivered._

_The persistent tapping began again and he rolled his head carefully to find the source of the noise._

_He blinked twice and almost jerked upright in his delight._

_It was He. _

_It was the Healing One, arrived at last, cross kingdom and soil and sands and time to breathe health into him. At last! At last! Gathering his strength, Preston called out to him. _

_"Sire!"_

_That croak stole the remainder of his energy and Preston slowly faded back into fitful sleep._


End file.
